Playing games of chance is a popular recreational activity. There are many types of games of chance including table games where players wager against a live dealer such as blackjack, Pai Gow, roulette, Baccarat. Other types of games of chance are offered as automated machines. Examples include slots, poker, bingo, etc. Still other types of games of chance allow players to wager against one another, such as a poker table. In return for a wager, games of chance generate randomly determined outcomes, some of which result in a winning event. Games of chance are often played with wagers having financial value but some games of chance are played with points or other freely available currency having no fiscal worth.
Games of chance may be played in casinos, or at home using electronic devices or mechanical equipment. Gambling via Internet, whether for fun or for money, is also a popular activity.
Games of chance typically associate a winning event with a specific game outcome. For example, achievement of BAR-BAR-BAR on the payline of a three reel slot machine might pay 20 credits on a 1 credit wager. Determination of a base game result often involves building a table of possible results on the base game, generating a random number using a random number generator (RNG), comparing the generated number with the results listed in the table, and displaying that result on the base game display as a base game result.
As one example of a base game implementation, a base game has three reels each having 20 reel positions. Symbols appear at each reel position, with the more likely symbols (such as cherries) appearing multiple times and less likely symbols (such as a ‘7’) appearing only once. The reel positions may be reel, as in a physical slot machine reel, or virtual. The three reels thus result in 20*20*20=8,000 possible combinations of reel positions. The chance of receiving a 7-7-7 result may occur only 1:8000 times using the RNG because each ‘7’ appears only once in each reel. At the start of each play, a player uses one or more game credits and pulls the slot machine handle or pushes a button to activate the game. A RNG is then generated from 1 to 8000—say 1,433—which corresponds to the result lemon-BAR-BAR. The base game result is referenced against a look-up table to determine whether the result is a win or a non-win. In this case, the lemon-bar-bar corresponds to a non-winning result. Zero credits would thus be paid out to the player.
One drawback to a random result-oriented base game is that winning results are completely unpredictable. That is, the chance of a winning result is the same after each play. With random results such as those using typical RNG-based games, there is the chance that a player will not obtain a winning result of a long time. When this happens, a player may become discouraged and never choose to play again. Further, many players grow frustrated if there is a long period of play between wins. Other players prefer to have longer periods between winning events but to have winning events that are larger or occur in clusters.
Accordingly, it would be desirable for the casino to be able to configure the timing of an award at the base game to coincide with player preferences to maintain their interest, while conforming to the payback percentage of the gaming machine per applicable gaming regulations.